Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is my pleasure to report to you on this morning's meeting. Let me first of all say that, as you have seen, this summit also began with a group photograph, or what is internationally known as a family photo. In contrast to many photographs of international meetings, this really is a family photo. The people standing together on this photograph really are the leaders of countries who feel they are part of a family, a Central European family.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

The Hungarian Presidency [of the V4] was faced with a serious challenge, because we achieved unparalleled success under the Polish Presidency. We must also personally thank Prime Minister Donald Tusk for this, because when we were negotiating the budget within the European Union, our work was coordinated by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. And the figures show that the result exceeded all expectations. And on the one hand this of course shows that the Visegrád Group has strength, but it also points to the fact that if it has good leadership, then we are capable of extraordinary achievements. This is why the standards were set so high in my view. I have worked to the best of my abilities to meet this challenge, and I must say that we have already achieved a few notable results here, during our first meeting. Of these, I would primarily mention military cooperation. Naturally, as Robert Fico stated during the summit, one of the great advantages of the Visegrád Four is our sense of reality, and so we never chase hazy dreams; we know exactly what we can afford and what we cannot, and we also know that the world we live in today does not favour an increase in military spending, because we have plenty of other problems to deal with. We do, however, agree that what we do spend should be spent much more rationally and with greater coordination, and if this will indeed be our course of action, if we establish a joint battle group and complete the tasks that we have set as our goal -- the coordination of procurement, joint military exercises and so forth -- then we will be capable of fielding a significantly greater military capacity using the same resources. You will also have an opportunity to read the document on this decision.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

We also discussed cooperation in trade. We agreed that we would ask the leaders of our chambers of commerce and industry to regularly organise meetings of the V4 chambers of commerce and chambers of industry, so that a cooperation that serves the interests of Central Europe can also come about at that level. We have taken steps towards the joint foreign representation of the Visegrád countries, as a result of which we will be establishing a joint representation under the name "Visegrád House" in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's industrial centre. The speakers of parliament of the Visegrád countries will also be meeting during the first half of next year so that work can begin on developing the parliamentary dimension of Visegrád Four cooperation. As you have heard, we have increased the budget of the International Visegrád Fund, and also discussed at length the issues of energy and energy security. I would like to take this opportunity to relate a few very clear facts to you. The first is that we all support nuclear energy. We believe that it is important and is something that the European economy cannot disregard in future. And we also believe that every country has the right to generate its own energy requirements from the resources it has at its disposal, according to its unique characteristics and interests. And for this reason we expect the European Union to facilitate the increase of Central Europe's nuclear capacity, rather than impede it. This also relates to the issue that it would be unwise to over-regulate this area and the state funding of energy-related investment projects must also be rethought, because in our view, nuclear energy is being discriminated against. This is something we should think through again. We spoke about the gas market. The firm standpoint of the four Prime Ministers is that the extraction of shale gas is necessary. We support those countries who express a wish to bring the shale gas discovered in their territory to the surface within their own energy systems, and we would like to make it extremely clear that this is our joint standpoint. Finally, I also inherited a Gas Action Plan programme from the Polish Presidency. This was proposed earlier by President Donald Tusk, and it has been adopted. The next step in this action plan is the establishment of the V4 gas market forum and the first session of this forum, and this is important in the interests of establishing a regional gas market, will take place here in Budapest during the course of this month.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

We have of course also begun the discussion of issues relating to the European Union, and will continue to do so over lunch. In closing, before giving the floor to my colleagues, I would like to tell you that we have a firm belief in the situation analysis about which I have spoken on several occasions here in Hungary, and according to which this region has the greatest potential for economic growth within the European Union. We must rise to this responsibility! In future, Central Europe will carry more weight than before, and both its economic influence and economic strength will also grow. What we, Prime Ministers, agree on is that we can make better use of and better exploit the opportunities that will be available to Central Europe during the upcoming decades if we work together rather than individually, meaning that we would like to use Central Europe's increasing economic power to strengthen our cooperation in parallel with it. This is good news for every citizen of Central Europe.

Thank you for your kind attention!

(Prime Minister’s Office)